If it's a stealth template then an option for player LOS visibility (eg. not being able to see enemies behind doors or upstairs) is a must. I did something like this recently & used shadow casting to blackout unseen areas: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/523 ... index.html

You also want things like security cameras which trigger an output (their FOV could simply be triangular sprites) & lasers (tripwires with output trigger or harmful ones).

Triggerables (output objects) could have a link to alarms or traps (input objects) that the player could break, either by shooting a wire, hacking a console or disabling a power supply.

Lighting could be done with a semi-opaque black rectangle overlay in each room, & toggled with lightswitches, shooting the lights or disabling power. Enemies in those rooms would have a shorter view range.

Enemies should have an option for a visible view cone, which i suppose would be a triangular sprite with overlap testing, although handling scenery interaction with their FOV cone might be tricky (eg. what happens to the cone as they approach a wall?).

For UI, how about a sprite showing the last spotted player position (a ghost copy of the player) plus some MGS style enemy state indicators (? or ! symbols above their heads). Also an alert cooldown timer.

As you can tell, I like stealth games <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

I'm not using a tilemap - the walls & floors are just sprites. There are still some shadow issues when the player gets too close to a thin wall for example.

Maybe the best way to do player visibility would just be to black out rooms that you can't see into. You could have a fade behavior on some blackout sprites (could be the same sprites used for light zones, & even ai patrol zones).

Then if you hack a room's camera, the room fades in even if you're not looking into it.

This looks like a neat little project. If you want some inspiration you should give the Deadbolt demo a shot, as it feels oh so good to play. It's a lot like what you got going here, with some differences.

back to work after some freelancing for couple C2 projects making custom AI tailored to each project. much to the reason for the delay in updates - if you need any free help or any major implementations refer to here - Job Offers and Team Requests

Hope to release by next week fully commented, organised and adjustable. are there still anymore interested on the project, finding it harder to stay motivated with a project like this where the focus is more on the "tool" than designing gameplay scenarios.

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+ I SWEAR THIS TIME IN THE NEXT UPDATE THE MAJOR FOCUS WILL BE ON THE AI.